Saretta Morgan, Natalie Khankan, and Sarah Riggs: March 18, 2022

Saretta Morgan reads from a new work in progress, titled "Consequences of Arrival" [brief loss of audio in the recording of this poem]. Next she reads from the manuscript to Alt-Nature: "If Skin Passes Always Through Language, Texture is Compelled by Desire." Lastly, she reads "In a Staff Parking Lot at CCA Eloy, the ICE Agent Misunderstands My Watercolors," and refers to her experience doing advocacy and support work for migrant women at a U.S. detention center in Eloy, AZ, involving asylum-seekers from Cameroon. 

Nathalie Khankan reads "Your Terrain is Daily," explaining that the poem is addressed to a giraffe named Brownie from Qalqilya Zoo in the West Bank Palestinian town of Qalqilya, that was killed in a 2002 Israeli military raid. Khankan then introduces QUIET ORIENT RIOT as a book about "a journey to conceive a Palestinian child using assisted reproductive technology," and proceeds to read the opening poem and further selections from the work.

Sarah Riggs reads first from her latest poetry collection, Nerve Epistle: "Dear Laila May," dedicated to her daughter; "Word to the Ache: An Assemblage," for Michael Palmer; "Dear Norma Cole"; a poem for Geneva Chao, as well as the response poem written by Chao; "Dear Saphira," also the poet's daughter; and "Elegy for My Uncle." She then reads a work dedicated to Cecilia Vicuña, beginning "We are the bees of the invisible...." The audience is given strips of paper with words on them and is instructed to read them out loud as part of the presentation of the poem.

The poets are invited to converse with one another about their work and to respond to questions from the audience. Saretta Morgan opens the conversation with the topic of "language and arrival." Nathalie Khankan describes the language in QUIET ORIENT RIOT as "stuttering and not finding its way to completion," especially in relation to her experience with multiple languages (Arabic, Danish, and English). Sarah Riggs says that translation allows her to release the "tension" within language by bringing it into contact with another, mentioning her translation work with Isabelle Garron and Etel Adnan. Morgan reflects on the political asylum process and "how it relies on your ability to form yourself into a certain narrative, so that as you're arriving, the trauma that you bring with you and how you understand yourself within that has to be translated...." A question comes from the audience about connecting to or arriving at their own bodies, to their emotions and to other people. Following the authors' responses is another audience question regarding the idea of "distance" and how it might play into their writing practices.